Monday 1st Jul

And so the day dawns, and finally the new carpet is due, and so it is that at 8am I can be found taking a Stanley Knife to the old carpet. I object to the idea of paying £30 or more for someone to take it away when I can do it myself. I chop it up into bitesize pieces and then get the youngest to help me move the furniture out into the garden, to allow the fitters easy access. The guys turn up mid-morning and just as they finish it starts to spit outside. They give me a hand and we get the furniture back inside in  double-quick time. Now all that remains is for me to bung the old carpet in the back of the car, and then to spend 15 minutes vacuuming up the bits on the new one. Eventually the DIY project is finished. One room in nearly four months, not bad even if I do say so myself.

The eldest decided she’d like some P plates for her driving last week, and so after pricing them online from the local shops I looked to ebay which was significantly cheaper. However after ordering them in the middle of last week I’m still waiting for them to arrive. If I’d gone to the shops I’d have had them in my hand and she could have been using them straight away. An interesting contrast, between price and value. A better price online, but it would have been better value to have bought in the shop and have the plates in my hand. In retrospect I should have gone to the shops.

I chuck the old carpet on the tip after lunch and then drop five bags of goods off at Barnardo’s, before dropping into the carpet shop to pay the balance, leaving us suitably poorer. The kids come back in from school fairly relaxed as they have no homework, I’m still wondering about the amount of learning they do at this time of year, and therefore the value of school after exams are over.

The chap who is meant to be coming to look at my car sent me a text to say he has a problem with his gearbox! Oh well, hopefully the car won’t break down before he gets to look at.

Yours waiting for the next DIY project to land.

Jay